by Ozer Khalid*
*The author is a Senior Consultant, a Foreign Policy & Counter-Terrorism Expert, a regular Criterion Quarterly contributor and a global columnist. Email [email protected] Twitter verified @OzerKhalid
The Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan ideologically awakens the outlawed anti Pakistan Taliban known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), Daesh or Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP or ISIS-K) the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), Jamat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and other insurgents linked to the TTP, including smaller splinter, residual and escapee networks banned in Pakistan.
Their lust for ungoverned territories is undeniable – and Afghanistan under the Taliban (at present) is more ungoverned than it was under U.S. occupation.
Trouble in Paradise? Internal Rifts and Fissures within the Afghan Taliban
Doha’s 2020 deal legally binds the Taliban to impede cross-border terrorists from misusing Afghanistan’s soil against neighbouring countries. However, exactly how much control the Taliban leaders wield over their firebrand Provincial commanders remains suspect. Factions of disunity within the Taliban are emerging. Taliban’s Provincial Commanders often disagree with Central command in Kabul and Kandahar.
The Taliban are not a unitary monolith but a diverse mosaic.
Internal rifts have emerged amongst Afghanistan’s Taliban ranks. On one side, there is Sirajuddin Haqqani, the al-Qaeda sympathizing chief of the “Haqqani” Network. On the other, there is the Mohammad “Yaqoob” faction. Internecine power contests between the Haqqani and Yaqoob faction can be exploited by TTP, BLA, ISKP and al-Qaeda, potentially leading to a contradictory foreign policy towards Pakistan.
The ill-judged Taliban decision to release some Pakistan Taliban (TTP) militant prisoners may be an indication of things to come. Pakistan’s Taliban, loosely affiliated with Afghanistan’s Taliban, harbors sanctuaries in Afghanistan’s Eastern insurgent provinces of Paktika and Paktia.
Islamabad knows how easily militancy seeps across the porous Pakistan-Afghanistan border of the Hindu Kush.
The TTP’s Modus Operandi
The TTP learned lessons from the Afghan Taliban’s modus operandi: that a geographically contained strategy with a tight command-and- control structure and well-positioned narrative heightens militancy’s poisonous spread.
The TTP is emboldened by the reunification of splinter groups in Afghanistan, where the Shehryar Mehsud, Jamaatul Ahrar (JuA), Hizb-ul-Ahrar, Amjad Farooqi and Usman Saifullah group(s) pledged allegiance to TTP. The TTP regrouped in 2020, unifying squabbling offshoots and unleashing a spate of deadly attacks throughout Pakistan. A UNSC report warned of at least 6,500 TTP members hiding in Afghanistan’s eastern districts bordering Pakistan. TTP offered military assistance to the Taliban’s offensive vis-à-vis the former Afghan government.
TTP now ramps up its insidious propaganda through a magazine, Mujallah Taliban, and also released the Sunnat-e- Khaula, a magazine focused on female recruitment and radicalization in Pakistan.
An Unholy Trinity: TTP, Al-Qaeda and ISKP Khorasan
Under Noor Wali Mehsud’s leadership the TTP rekindled ties with Al-Qaeda and swore bayat (allegiance) to the Afghan Taliban chief, Haibatullah Akhunzada. Taliban 2.0 also refused to expel Al Qaeda present in at least 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.
The TTP extremist, Maulana Faqir Mohammad, released from prison by the Taliban, pledged close ties to Al Qaeda chief Ayman al Zawahiri. The TTP also embraced the Afghan based ISKP. Many TTP members joined ISKP which is led by former TTP commanders from Pakistan’s Orakzai and Khyber Agencies.
ISKP’s recruitment propaganda is now tailored towards a South Asian audience with its Voice of Hind e-magazines and its Voice of the Khorasan radio broadcast.
Since 2020, India became a key recruiting ground for ISKP. An estimated 100 people from the Indian state of Kerala alone have joined ISKP in Afghanistan. Amongst the 1,400 ISKP who surrendered to Afghan security forces in 2020, many were Indian citizens.
In 2020, ISKP attacked Kabul’s Sikh community, killing 25 worshippers. The terrorist was Abu Khalid al-Hindi from Kerala, India. From January to April 2021, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) recorded 77 attacks claimed by or blamed on ISKP, especially targeting Shia Muslims, women, and foreigners. ISKP also claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in Pakistan.
ISKP and Taliban have a sworn rivalry. The first thing the Taliban did after Kabul’s take-over was to kill the imprisoned local ISIS chief. ISIS-KP dangerously went underground in Eastern Nangarhar and Nuristan. Many relocated to the mountainous Kunar region, bordering Pakistan.
Targeting Chinese Investments in Pakistan
BLA and TTP have targeted Chinese interests in Pakistan. The TTP recently detonated a car bomb in Pakistan’s southwestern city of Quetta, targeting the Chinese Ambassador. The BLA unleashed terror in Southern Sindh and Balochistan. The killing of nine Chinese nationals in a bus explosion in Northern Kohistan and BLA’s suicide bombing targeting a convoy of Chinese engineers, injuring one Chinese citizen and killing two children in Gwadar are bone-chilling examples. Out of concern, Beijing delayed the signing of CPEC related agreements with Pakistan.
As the BLA and TTP now open new fronts targeting Chinese interests in Pakistan, a three-member commission set up by Taliban chief, Hibatullah Akhunzada, is investigating Islamabad’s complaints that the TTP utilizes Afghan territory to plan cross-border terrorist attacks. Afghanistan`s Taliban Commission have warned the TTP to settle their problems with Pakistan and return to the country in exchange for a possible amnesty by Pakistan’s government.
Chinese influence in Afghanistan rises at India’s expense. The Taliban 2.0 stopped imports and exports from India via Pakistan’s transit routes. Taliban 2.0 undercut Indian support for Iran’s Chabahar port where New Delhi tried to side-step Pakistan’s trade via land route from Afghanistan to Central Asia. So, India remains a “spoiler” in Afghanistan as it tries to remain relevant and destabilize Pakistan.
Information Warfare – A Cyber War of Narratives
As the “war on terror” recedes the “war of narratives” begins. Radicalization goes online. A recent online anti-Pakistan hashtag, #SanctionPakistan, is the latest example of digital daggers being drawn searching for Pakistani pounds of flesh.
Islamabad must dedicate more resources to tackle the narrative warfare and sharpen their social media cells, especially trained to engage with hostile foreign media and troll farms thwarting an anti-Pakistan social media onslaught.
Recently, hyper nationalist media outlets also made disingenuously false and ludicrously laughable allegations about Pakistan’s involvement in the restive Panjshir Valley. All this is a recipe for a targeted multi- media campaign to malign Pakistan for which it must be rapidly prepared with counter-narratives.
With the U.S. and Western media particularly, Pakistan must be treated as an ally not a scapegoat.
A Call to Action: How to best Contain Militants from Across the Border
Pakistan must form a Security Committee and renew the National Action Plan to mitigate separatist terrorism—Pakistan’s western provinces bordering Afghanistan are particularly vulnerable—sourced from Afghan territory.
Kabul has not yet acted against cross-border militants. Islamabad must secure ironclad guarantees from the Taliban compelling them to implement detailed counter-terrorism (CT) road-maps. One non- negotiable pre-condition which Pakistan and other regional allies must pressurize the Taliban for is to immediately arrest and convict high- profile TTP, BLA and AQIS militants sheltered on Afghan soil. It is not in the Taliban’s interest to shelter anti-Pakistan radicals like the TTP and BLA since Pakistan’s trade routes are a lifeline for a landlocked Afghanistan.
Even if Afghan based TTP, ISKP, AQIS and others request the Afghan Taliban for political amnesty, the present regime in Kabul must remain wary, as such cut-throat extremists are masters of deception. Such militants have ample footprint within Afghanistan and can stage attacks against their nemesis at any time.
Diplomatic negotiations must yield Kabul to a political- tribal TTP containment strategy, surrendering TTP miscreants to Pakistan’s security authorities via Taliban mediation. In response, the TTP are likely to camouflage—seeking hide-outs within Afghanistan and migrating away from their existing Eastern provincial strongholds.
Finally, an enduring counter-terrorism narrative must mature beyond kinetic battlefield planning. In the long-term the best way to prevent violent extremism (PVE) is by enhancing social integration, improving education and widening economic activity and connectivity, especially in a land-locked fragile state like Afghanistan.
